


don't tell me that we've grown for having loved a little while

by piggy09



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-29 23:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14483568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: "Propunk au prompt~ Something along the lines of the novel 'They Both Die In the End' by Adam Silvera. Sarah and Rachel, two total strangers, are fated to die the same day: today. They meet up through an app called 'Last Friend,' specifically meant to match up people who are about to die so they can have an eventful last day, where they try 'to live a lifetime in single day.'"





	don't tell me that we've grown for having loved a little while

**6:04am**

Sarah’s date is wearing a dress that’s patterned with either flowers or fireworks. She has a blonde bob. She’s sitting on a park bench with her legs folded under her, heels discarded on the ground, eating an ice cream cone contemplatively. She is licking it in even strokes, so that the whole thing is one smooth dome.

“Rachel?” Sarah says, stopping in front of her. She feels stupid for not dressing up. She’d wanted to be comfortable – last day and all that – but now she feels underdressed. She should have at least worn a jacket, just because the pockets would give her something to do with her hands. Instead she’s wearing a ratty old London Calling tank top and shorts and the woman who is probably Rachel Duncan looks – beautiful.

“You’re late,” Rachel says. The pink of her tongue rolls against the ice cream and then is gone.

“Do you want to fight me all day,” Sarah says.

“I suppose not.” Rachel gestures towards the bench; Sarah sits down. This is stupid. She’s stupid. Her death is a looming wave that’s hanging over her head and she can’t forget about it.

“We don’t have to do this,” she says. The sun is rising. She’s so tired. When’s the last time she saw a sunrise? It’s more blue than she was expecting; she’d thought it would be pink.

Next to her, Rachel lowers the ice cream cone. She tilts her head to look at Sarah, lets her feet unfold from the bench and touch the ground. Her fingernails are silver but her toenails are unpainted. Sarah’s toenails are black, but the paint is chipped and they’re in boots so that will never matter again.

“I’ve lived alone,” Rachel says. “I don’t think I’d like to die alone.” She blinks, a gesture that eats up one or two whole precious seconds. “Unless that was your way of saying you’d like to leave.”

Sarah swallows. “Nah,” she says. “Me either. I don’t want to die – I don’t want to die alone, so.”

“Mm,” Rachel says. She holds out the ice cream cone to Sarah. “Would you like some.”

“Ice cream for breakfast,” Sarah says, smiling a little bit despite herself.

“I’ve never done it.”

“Me either,” Sarah says, and takes the cone. It’s cinnamon. She’s never had cinnamon ice cream before.

**6:22am**

“It’s the sort of job that one bears in order to accumulate the greatest possible amount of wealth and prestige. If I’d known I would die young, I would have been an artist.”

“You paint?”

“I would have learned.”

“Woulda learned guitar. Always thought I should be in a band.”

“You do have the look.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“It was a compliment.”

“Well, cheers.”

**6:30am**

“How do you think it’ll go?”

“Quickly.”

“I think I’m gonna get hit by a car. Can’t stop thinking about it. Bloody car out of bloody nowhere. Crash. Wish I knew when it was gonna happen. Christ, can’t stand it.”

“I think I’ll have a heart attack. From residual stress.”

“You better not die before me. I’m not doing this alone.”

“…”

“Shit. Sorry.”

**7:13am**

Eventually they make it around the entire park. Sarah has been scuffing her feet through the grass, trying to avoid the flowers that are just now starting to grow. Around them, commuters make their way to work. No one even looks at them. This is just another day, but also it’s the last day.

Rachel took off her shoes ten minutes ago, and she is letting them dangle from her fingers as she walks barefoot next to Sarah in the grass. Sarah wouldn’t like her much, if she wasn’t Sarah’s only anchor. As it is Sarah likes her a lot. She’s lonely. She’s smart. She’s probably a bitch to work with, but she smiles when Sarah makes jokes so Sarah doesn’t mind at all.

“Now what,” Sarah says.

“Would you object to breakfast,” Rachel says.

“More ice cream?”

Rachel smiles again. It cracks at the edges, like she doesn’t know how to do it. “If you’d like.”

**8:37am**

They go to an IHOP and order pancakes and sausage and waffles and eggs and sandwiches and milkshakes and french fries and “Too much,” Sarah says, “holy shit” as the food keeps coming and Rachel pulls the black AmEx out of her wallet and says “It’s not.”

**8:46am**

“You were right,” Rachel says. “That was entirely too much.”

“I’m gonna throw up, Rachel.”

“You might as well.”

“Fat lot of help you are.”

**9:02am**

The city is bright; the sky is a cloudless blue, and the air is warm against Sarah’s arms and legs. They’re walking along the sidewalk to an art museum that Rachel wants to visit. There are blossoms falling from all the trees, spiraling down and down to the pavement.

Eventually Rachel reaches out and tentatively grabs Sarah’s hand. Sarah grabs back, tightly, squeezes Rachel’s fingers between her own. It feels good. She’d meant it, earlier: she doesn’t want to die alone.

**9:47am**

Maybe the art makes sense because it’s Sarah’s last day. Maybe it makes sense because Rachel keeps whispering explanations into Sarah’s ear, voice high and fast and excited. Maybe she just finally gets art. Who knows. She keeps looking at landscapes and wanting to cry; the feelings hit her in unbearable waves.

They’re in a room full of paintings of bouquets, security guard dozing at the door, and Rachel steps forward and places her palm flat on one of the canvases. Sarah wishes she had a camera. Sarah wishes this moment could live outside of today, that she could remember it years from now: Rachel’s face lighting up as she presses harder and harder against the canvas, like it’ll open up to her. Like if she just wants it enough, it’ll let her in.

**9:48am**

When the security guard charges forward across the room, Sarah punches him in the nose. She feels sort of bad about it; the guy didn’t do anything wrong. But also: screw it.

**9:49am**

She loses that fight pretty badly.

**9:58am**

Rachel won’t stop laughing. Actually laughing. Rachel doesn’t seem like the sort of person who laughs, but she’s giggling now. Every time she looks at Sarah she starts laughing again.

Sarah flips her off with the hand that isn’t holding a handful of wrapped Popsicles up against her bruised and bloody face.

Rachel covers her mouth with her hand, but doesn’t stop. People are staring at them now on the sidewalk: Sarah bleeding, Rachel laughing. Finally. People can tell that nothing about today is normal; nothing is ever going to be normal again.

“Hope it was worth it,” Sarah says, muffled and nasally.

Rachel stops laughing, abruptly. “Yes,” she says. “It was.”

“Oh,” Sarah says. “I – I’m glad.”

“I’m sorry,” Rachel says.

Sarah shrugs a shoulder. “Worth it,” she says.

“You,” Rachel says, “are a very strange person, Sarah.”

“You took me to a museum so you could feel up the art and  _I’m_ the strange one?”

“Doesn’t everyone want to touch it?” Rachel says. “Isn’t that life – not touching everything you’d like to touch?”

She watches Sarah when she says it, urgently, like she really wants to hear Sarah’s answer.

“But you’re dying,” Sarah says. “So it doesn’t matter.”

“Exactly,” Rachel says. “Yes. You understand.”

**10:02am**

This time Sarah takes Rachel’s hand. She leans in close enough that their arms bump into each other.

**10:07am**

“Isn’t there anything you’d like to do,” Rachel says.

“No,” Sarah says. “Sad, yeah? I never – never really wanted anything, to be honest. Just wanted to hide out and drink and shag and not feel anythin’.” She throws out the last Popsicle in a trash can they walk by, feels the hiss of air against her bruising face. “Didn’t even tell my mum,” she says. “About today. She’d just cry. Couldn’t – couldn’t bear it. I’m sort of an arsehole. You don’t know that about me, but I am. I’m too shit to even tell my own mum today’s my last day.”

Rachel squeezes Sarah’s hand. “You have time,” she says.

“Is it stupid,” Sarah says. “Is – is it–” she’s not going to cry, she’s not going to let herself cry. “Is it stupid, that I don’t want to die. If I wasn’t doing anything with my life anyway. I shouldn’t be this pissed that I’m losing it.”

Rachel stops walking, right in the middle of the sidewalk. People pass around them, frowning, doing double-takes at Sarah’s face, moving on again and living anyways.

Rachel takes Sarah’s face in her hands – gently, her palm warm and soft against a bruise. “Your death is a tragedy,” she says. “You should be upset. You should be furious. This shouldn’t be your time to die.”

**10:15am**

It takes Sarah a long time to stop crying.

**10:35am**

“That’s it,” Rachel says, outside of the building. It’s enormous and it’s made of glass and steel and it is very, very ugly. “My entire life, wasted on that.”

“Do you want to go in,” Sarah says.

“Absolutely not.”

“It wasn’t wasted,” Sarah says. “At least you built something. At least people are gonna remember you.”

“As what?” Rachel says. “For what?” She smiles; it isn’t a smile. She pulls Sarah further down the sidewalk. “What do you do with your days, Sarah.”

“Honest? I’m usually not even awake yet.”

Rachel smiles at her. “Neither of us even live in this city, do we,” she says.

“At night,” Sarah says, “yeah. Yeah, I live here at night.”

“You’ll have to show me,” Rachel says. “If.”

“If,” Sarah says.

**10:42am**

“Wait,” Rachel says.

**11:03am**

“You absolute madwoman.”

“Don’t,” Rachel gasps, leaning against a wall and panting for breath. It’s laughter, mostly, around the edges. Sarah has sat down on the ground, back here in this alley far away from Rachel’s corporation building.

“You’re bloody crazy,” Sarah says. “You know that? That’s comin’ from me. I fought a bloody security guard.”

“I said  _don’t_ ,” Rachel says, smile smashing up her mouth.

“Just gonna throw a bloody brick through a bloody window, huh Rachel?”

“I thought about it,” Rachel says dreamily, “every day. Every single day I imagined ruining all of my office furniture and smashing that entire building to splinters. Oh, Sarah. I didn’t even know that things could feel good.”

Sarah licks her lips. “It felt good?” she says.

“Better than anything,” Rachel says.

**11:44am**

“So  _I’m_  a madwoman, Sarah?”

“Don’t start.”

“At least it wasn’t my idea to return to the scene of the crime–”

“You made it sound bloody exciting!”

“With  _another stone_ –”

“You were right, Christ, let it go.”

“It shattered more beautifully the second time.”

“It did, didn’t it.”

**12:22pm**

Rachel lowers her burger. “I’ve decided,” she says, “that I’m not actually fond of burgers.”

Sarah tries to say  _that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard_ but through her mouthful of burger it mostly comes out as “Ar har war.” She inhales another fry. God, she loves french fries. She’s gonna miss–

She can’t think about that, she can’t, she won’t. Fries are good. She likes fries. She fights down the black pit at the center of her chest and eats another bite of burger.

Rachel stands up and leaves the table. “Oi!” Sarah says, swallowing. “The hell’re you–”

“I want,” Rachel calls over her shoulder, “ _real food_.”

“Rachel!” Sarah says, scrambling up from the table. “You didn’t –  _pay_ – oh bollocks.”

**1:18pm**

“So how many places are we gonna get kicked out of today.”

“I wanted to taste their duck again,” Rachel says, sitting on the curb. “It’s not as if I could book a reservation.”

Sarah sits down next to her. “You’re bloody insane,” she says.

“I would have repressed it for far longer,” Rachel says, “if I’d had time.”

“Lucky me,” Sarah says. She bumps Rachel’s shoulder with hers.

**1:25pm**

“Do you want to have sex?”

**1:44pm**

Rachel’s apartment is unbelievable – huge, glittering, ridiculously expensive. Rachel walks in and picks up a wine glass, throws it against the wall. It shatters. Sarah watches Rachel’s face shatter as the glass shatters and realizes that she’s actually scared of Rachel. She’s so scared. Maybe Rachel is what’s gonna kill her. Maybe Sarah likes that.

“So?” Rachel says, turning around like she hasn’t done anything at all. “Shall we?”

**2:27pm**

They take each other apart against the wall and on the couch and in Rachel’s bed. Outside, the light changes. Everything feels frantic and horrified and inevitable. Sarah touches Rachel like they’re dying; Sarah touches Rachel, and they’re dying. It’s the best sex Sarah has ever had. Rachel bites and moans and has a wickedly talented tongue and when they’re done Sarah is humming, golden, full up to the top with bliss.

Rachel snuggles under Sarah’s arm, insistently. She rests her head on Sarah’s chest. Rachel’s sheets are so soft they don’t even feel real. Rachel doesn’t even feel real, her heart pounding so madly that it shakes Sarah too.

“Don’t go,” Rachel says.

“I won’t,” Sarah says. “I’m right here.”

**2:43pm**

“I think you know me more than anyone has ever known me.”

**2:47pm**

“I think I’ve been scared my whole life.”

**4:12pm**

Rachel changes into a new dress – bright red and satin (“I’d always planned to wear it when I left my job”) – and Sarah pulls on one of Rachel’s blazers over her tank top and they tumble into the nearest bar. They drink too much. They order drinks with terrible names; they drink outrageous colors and glasses of wine that are too expensive to even think about. Sarah does body shots off of Rachel, licks up the tequila and lime of her. They fuck in the bathroom, shaking the stalls, not even pretending to be quiet. Salt and salt and salt. They stagger forwards and Sarah doesn’t know when Rachel started laughing but she doesn’t mind it. She likes it. She likes Rachel, actually, a lot. Rachel keeps kissing her, over and over again, her mouth smashing into Sarah’s mouth like

and she doesn’t stop. It’s the middle of the day and the light is too sharp to believe and they are outrageously drunk. Nothing matters. Literally nothing matters. “I love you,” Sarah says, and “I love you” and Rachel says “You know I don’t think I’ve loved anything besides you, isn’t that sad” and Sarah says “No” and Sarah says “You’re so bloody beautiful” and Rachel says “You’re more alive than anything I’ve ever seen” and then she steps out into the road and a car hits her. It runs right into her and she dies.

**4:15pm**

The ambulances come, but she’s dead. 

**4:19pm**

Sarah sits on the curb and watches the lights flash. They take Rachel away. Sarah is so fucking drunk, and also she’s alone. When people try to talk to her she stands up and staggers down the sidewalk, shoulders hunched, Rachel’s blazer rising up around her ears like armor. When she makes it to the end of the block, she throws up in the street.

**4:46pm**

“Hey, mum. It’s me. I’m sorry I’m drunk. I know day drinking is the worst and you hate it but you hate it when I drink whenever I do so I guess it doesn’t really matter, yeah? I guess none of it matters. Today’s my last day. Couldn’t tell you to your face so I’m just gonna leave this message and hope you get it. It was a good day. Met a girl. Through that app, y’know, the – the dead one. That one. Anyways her name’s Rachel and we did a lot of stupid shit and I keep thinking about everything, I just, I keep thinking about everything, the ice cream and the light. Mum I wish you could’ve seen the light. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I love you. I’m sorry for – for everything, I guess. You would’ve liked Rachel. Smart bird. She knew exactly what she wanted. Now she’s dead and I dunno what I want. I guess I just want her to come back. Siobhan I love you and I’m so sorry. Did I say that? I’m sorry. I love you. Uh. Please – please just–”

**5:12pm**

She spends a long time sobering up and carving their initials into the corner of a sidewalk square. It’s hard. It takes forever. No one is even going to notice, because only the dead look down.

**5:53pm**

Sarah watches the sun set from the rooftop of someone else’s apartment building. She is making her way, slowly, through an entire pizza. (Cheese.) (At the end of the everything, she just wants cheese.) The sunset isn’t really blue; it’s pink and red. It’s what Sarah expected this morning, actually. She’s glad she got it eventually.

She wishes she could go to Rachel’s funeral. She wishes she could tell them that Rachel liked wearing red and didn’t like burgers and she always just wanted to reach out to the world and she died without figuring out if she wanted to break it or if she wanted it to reach back. No one will ever know any of this except Sarah, and Sarah won’t know it for much longer at all.

She wonders what Rachel learned about her. Maybe Rachel figured out all the secrets of Sarah, everything about Sarah that Sarah never understood. All of those dark and hidden places. If they’d had just a little bit longer Rachel could have explained, told Sarah that she was just afraid and that’s forgivable. That’s fine. It’s alright that today is Sarah’s last day, because she hasn’t done anything that’s completely unforgivable. It’s alright. She’s alright.

But Rachel died first, so Sarah doesn’t know.

The sun sets. Sarah heads back into the building, the dim fluorescent lighting of the stairwell. On the way down the stairs she slips, falls down a flight, and breaks her neck.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, don't leave me here alone  
> Don't tell me that we've grown for having loved a little while  
> Oh, I don't wanna be alone  
> I wanna find a home and I wanna share it with you  
> \--"Hello My Old Heart," The Oh Hellos
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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